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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29986530">one-way</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/00line/pseuds/00line'>00line</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stray Kids (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dreams, Gen, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Injuries, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 18:01:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,833</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29986530</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/00line/pseuds/00line</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“My name is Lee Minho,” he says, “and I’m usually a dream to you, but not right now. Right now, Kim Seungmin, you are awake. And I am dead.”</p><p>—</p><p>A mirror image, except not. Two different people, or one person and his mirror and the ghost who happened to be there too.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Seungmin &amp; Lee Minho | Lee Know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Sweet &amp; Sour Fest</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>one-way</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>for <a href="https://twitter.com/sweetsourfest">sweet &amp; sour fest!</a><br/>thank you to the mods + the prompter! i hope you enjoy this interpretation.<br/><strong>Prompt #a042:</strong> AU where Person A looks into the mirror but doesn’t see themselves, but instead, they see Person B, a wanderer from another world.</p><p>tw: blood, car accident. both appear separately and briefly. please let me know if you'd prefer these in the fic tags.</p><p>this is an exploration of grief. grief is messy and complicated, and everyone's relationship with it is different — even the same person can experience grief in multiple ways. i urge you to be careful while reading.<br/> <br/><a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4AxUFzY4jBQEMHQ82aHZox">music.</a> <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/00lines/skz-assorted-story-boards/one-way-2min/">visuals.</a><br/></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>My dreams were not unreal representations of something real; my dreams were a part of, and the same as, my real life.</em>  </p><p>– Jamaica Kincaid, <em>Annie John</em></p><p> </p><p>The dream doesn’t quite end when Seungmin hits the floor.</p><p>In his mind’s eye, he has just landed on the ground after plummeting from the sky. No sound escapes his mouth, no thrilled yell nor terrified scream. From behind him, a second person glides down and skips forward a few steps, coming to a steady stop. The person cheers and tilts their head back to let out the most excited, giddy laugh.</p><p>Dream Seungmin doesn’t understand. A few minutes ago, he was escaping a hijacked plane and had no parachute. He flailed and spun out of control in the freezing night air until he collided with another person who grabbed both his arms and anchored him, so sure in the chaos.</p><p>Seungmin looked up. It was Lee Know again. He’d recognize those eyes anywhere.</p><p>Then the scene changed. It was daytime, and he and Lee Know were falling together, wearing matching gray jumpsuits and safety gear, and Lee Know was urging him to let go. Let go, let go. They stopped holding each other’s arms so Seungmin could fall back and open his own parachute.</p><p>When he dropped toward the earth, wind rushing past his ears and heart pounding in his chest, everything seemed so quiet. It was the most at-peace he’d been in a long time, awake or asleep.</p><p>The landing area approached fast. Dream Seungmin braced himself to make contact. Real Seungmin, unconscious flesh and blood, took this to mean rolling off his bed and crashing to the carpet. Even as he now lies prone, he doesn’t wake up yet. The dream isn’t over.</p><p>Lee Know laughs until his stomach hurts. He glances over his shoulder at Seungmin sitting in the grass, shocked into silence. Both their jumpsuits turn red.</p><p>“I think I like this you the most,” Lee Know says.</p><p>Seungmin raises his head from between his knees. He scoffs. “Scared?”</p><p>“Quiet.” A smile plays at Lee Know’s lips. “But seeing you scared does make it better.”</p><p>Seungmin moves to respond, but suddenly the hijacked plane returns and crashes into the open field, blasting them both away in a shower of sparks and debris. He wakes up.</p><p>His stiff limbs shoot out to stretch like normal. The reality of the fall hits when he bumps his head on the bottom edge of the nightstand — another collision, though not as resounding as when he thudded onto the carpet or when the plane exploded in his dream. Or Lee Know’s laugh, startling in how full it felt. How real. Like Seungmin had heard it before.</p><p>The sky outside is dark, but Seungmin knows he’ll get no more sleep after a dream like that. He brushes himself off, feeling the fall and then some as he stands up, sips water from his reusable bottle, makes his bed, and stretches for a few minutes. Hardly strenuous activity, yet his entire body aches like it used to after a tough baseball practice in high school.</p><p>Seungmin yawns. He feels <em>heavy</em>.</p><p>He sits by the nightstand and picks up the black notebook resting on it — his dream journal. In it, Seungmin documents the plane scenes with as much detail as possible, leaving no parachute unopened. Even trivial things, like the dry grass of the drop zone he landed in, are crucial. He’s been doing this since college. Every brushstroke makes the painting. The painting preserves the memory of its subject matter.</p><p>Seungmin journals so he doesn’t forget.</p><p>Once he wrings out what he can from the plane dream, he jots down the scene before. In that one, he ran by himself alongside the Charles River on a gray winter morning. The dream was relatively static: just the run from Point A to Point B, with no unexplainable twists along the way and no conversation. And no Lee Know, unsurprisingly. Lee Know, Seungmin’s nickname for the most common person in his dreams he doesn’t remember from real life, only appears in his most high-stress dreams.</p><p>Those two are the only dreams from last night Seungmin recalls in full. He bookmarks the end of the diary, flips back to the start of the day’s entry to draw one star in gray – for the appearance of Lee Know – by the date, and returns to the first pages of the notebook.</p><p>On the left is the calendar for October, matching the one in his bullet journal. Unlike his beautifully illustrated planner full of tasks and themed spreads for socials, this one is minimal. Black and white and gray. The one exception, even in this notebook, is birthdays. For those, he color-codes.</p><p>Today is mint. He forgets why, but it’s been mint green for years. No reason to change it — it’s certainly <em>someone’s</em> birthday today.</p><p>On the right is a sleep tracker for the month, a feature exclusive to this journal. For his eyes only. Seungmin highlights the space for today’s date with the same gray mildliner. Over the marker, he writes the number 5 in black pen, for the hours he slept, and draws another star.</p><p>Another gray, starred night, like almost every night this month. He sets the book down.</p><p>The first rays of sunlight follow him to the bathroom he shares with his best friend Jisung. Seungmin notes the closed door of the other bedroom. Thankfully, Jisung is a deep sleeper, or at least one unwilling to get out of bed after all the noise Seungmin made this morning, like almost every morning this month. The numbers don’t lie.</p><p>Neither should the mirror.</p><p>Yet, when Seungmin goes to wash his face, he doesn’t see himself — tall and lean, mussed black hair, round wire glasses in hand — in the mirror. Reflected instead is someone slightly shorter than him, with mousy brown hair, dressed in a single shade of ash gray all the way down. They sport a catlike smile and sharp brown eyes.</p><p>He’d recognize those eyes anywhere.</p><p>Seungmin splashes his face with ice-cold water. He must be half-asleep to be seeing Lee Know in the mirror and not himself. The plane crash was a rough wake up call, after all.</p><p>He follows his morning routine, eyes avoiding every reflective surface, and makes breakfast. When he’s done eating, he leaves a plate ready for Jisung and goes to shower. The hot water wakes Seungmin up and wipes his immediate memory of red jumpsuits and wreckage. It relaxes his muscles at first, but every moment toweling himself dry and getting dressed is more painful than the last. Every <em>day</em> that passes is more painful than the last.</p><p>It should be a coincidence, how his worsening body aches and poor sleep line up with the frequency of frighteningly vivid dreams he’s been having, but Seungmin picks up patterns like loose change. He knows part of it is not having to wake up for school every day anymore. His bullet journal channel on YouTube and Twitch keeps him busy working, but it’s different.</p><p>He’s home alone with his brain. Oil and water.</p><p>And that’s only part of the problem. Seungmin can explain a bad brain and a break in routine. He can’t explain looking in the mirror to style his hair and still not seeing his own reflection.</p><p>It takes everything in him not to ball up his towel and throw it at the fogged glass. He’s not sure whether it would do anything anyway, and that of all things might wake Jisung up. Besides, the sort of smug expression Lee Know has on his face seems like it isn’t going anywhere.</p><p><em>Lee Know.</em> The figure from Seungmin’s dreams, except now Seungmin is very much awake. Maybe he’s hallucinating. He blinks furiously. Every rapid eye movement doesn’t clear his vision of solid gray and sharp brown.</p><p>“Something in your eye?” Lee Know asks.</p><p>Fuck. Even his voice is the same, but richer. Too textured to be imaginary.</p><p>“This has to be a dream,” Seungmin says.</p><p>“Those don’t get stuck in your eye, though. And you’re awake, Kim Seungmin. Sorry to break it to you. This is real, as much as I hate to admit it.”</p><p>“How do you know my name?”</p><p>“Come on, I know your memory isn’t <em>that</em> bad.” Lee Know crosses his arms. “Same reason you know mine. Next question.”</p><p>Seungmin recoils. “But I don’t? Know your name? I call you Lee Know when I see you in my dreams, because that’s what you are. A dream. Not real. Not–” He gestures at the mirror. “You know.”</p><p>Lee Know’s eyes narrow. If looks could kill.</p><p>Seungmin’s body language morphs from confused to defensive. He peels himself off the wall and crosses his own arms. He doesn’t cower. Seungmin doesn’t know Lee Know, has no reason to doubt, but something in him says backing down would get him nowhere.</p><p>Whatever Lee Know is looking for in Seungmin, he doesn’t seem to find. He sighs with his whole form. The gray of his clothes ripples unnaturally.</p><p>“My name is Lee Minho,” he says, “and I’m usually a dream to you, but not right now. Right now, Kim Seungmin, you are awake. And I am dead.”</p><p>Now Seungmin throws the towel. It bounces off the mirror without much of a sound and scatters the stuff on the sink counter, sending some things flying to the tile. The last of the steam on that part of the glass is now gone, and Lee Know – <em>Minho</em> – is still there, lips pursed.</p><p>“It’ll take much more than that to kill me twice,” Minho says.</p><p>“What the fuck do you mean you’re dead?”</p><p>“I mean I’m not alive. You can Google these things.”</p><p>Seungmin rolls his eyes. “How do I know this isn’t some elaborate hidden camera prank?”</p><p>“What, like Jisung would do this?” Minho snorts. “Have some faith in him.”</p><p>“And how do you know Jisung?”</p><p>“I know everyone!” Jisung says from the other side of the bathroom door. “You good in there?”</p><p>Seungmin yanks open the door. Jisung jumps.</p><p>“Jesus, Seungmin,” he says, clutching his chest. “What if you were naked?”</p><p>Two voices overlap. “<em>Why</em> would I open the door?” “Would that bother you?”</p><p>Minho stares at Seungmin. Seungmin turns to Jisung. Jisung gapes at the mirror.</p><p>The latter rubs a hand over his face and runs it through his hair. “Seriously, man, did I interrupt something? Are you talking to someone right now?”</p><p>“No?” Seungmin pulls his phone from his back pocket for a second before putting it back.</p><p>“Then who else said that?” Jisung asks.</p><p>“Oh my God,” Minho says quietly.</p><p>“Jisung.” Seungmin points to the mirror. His eyes widen. “Please tell me you see this too.”</p><p>Jisung stretches his neck. He wipes away the rest of the condensation on the mirror with the towel on the sink, making sure to clean the medicine cabinet door too. The glass on both is clean but streaky. He squints.</p><p>“Huh? Why can’t I see you?”</p><p>Seungmin throws up his arms. “Thank you!”</p><p>“Are you for real right now?” The incredulous expression on Jisung’s face is one Seungmin thinks he’ll never forget. “No, seriously. Seungmin, I can’t see you. You have no reflection.”</p><p>“Oh my <em>God!</em>”</p><p>Minho slumps forward against whatever barrier he has. His hands stop himself from fully slamming into it, but the force still rattles the mirror.</p><p>Jisung jolts. “What the fuck?”</p><p>Seungmin lets out a frustrated noise. “Are you really not seeing this? The guy that’s not me in the mirror? That <em>just</em> hit the glass?”</p><p>“Seungmin, if this is some fucking joke–”</p><p>“Thank you!” Minho echoes, pushing himself up. “I told you he would never do this.”</p><p>“Where is that voice fucking coming from?”</p><p>The upstairs neighbor bangs down on the ceiling. Jisung and Minho look up and flip them off. Seungmin’s vision fuzzes around the edges.</p><p>“I need some water.” He takes a seat on the lip of the bathtub, dropping his head in his hands. Minho follows him as a reflection should, but he doesn’t mimic his movements.</p><p>Seungmin hears Jisung dash away from the bathroom. Minho clears his throat.</p><p>“Well–”</p><p>“Shut the fuck up.”</p><p>Minho mocks him but says nothing else. Jisung returns and rests Seungmin’s water bottle by his feet, then backs out into the hall. Seungmin downs a third of his water before he looks back at his roommate, real and mortified, and his nightmare, who crosses his gray-covered arms again.</p><p>“Fucking– oh my God.” Seungmin’s head lolls back to meet his shoulders. He stares at the ceiling for answers. All he sees are pockmarks.</p><p>“Can I talk now?” Minho asks. “Since we’re all awake.”</p><p>Jisung makes a choked noise. Seungmin sits upright and waves a hand at the mirror.</p><p>Minho takes that as an affirmative. “Great. You said you can’t see me, Jisung?”</p><p>“I don’t believe in ghosts. Ghosts are fake, they’re not real.” Jisung crosses his fingers at his side. “Ghosts aren’t real.”</p><p>“Well, at least you know I’m dead.”</p><p>Now Seungmin flips him off. Minho ignores him.</p><p>“Who are you? What do you want?” Jisung asks the mirror.</p><p>“Right now, I want you to answer my question,” Minho replies.</p><p>Jisung swallows. “No. No, I can’t see you. I only see the bathroom and myself in the mirror.”</p><p>“Okay.” Minho exhales. “Alright.”</p><p>“Should I be able to? See you?”</p><p>Minho twists his lips. “I mean. You knew me too. I feel like you should.”</p><p>“What do you mean I knew you?” Jisung looks at Seungmin, who shrugs.</p><p>“He says his name is Lee Minho. Says that’s why he knows us.”</p><p>Jisung’s breath stills. His entire body does. “Lee Minho?”</p><p>“Yeah. Why?”</p><p>“Seungmin.” Jisung’s expression is intense. “I know it’s a common name but… Lee Minho. Like your– like your best friend Minho Lee. The one who died in high school.”</p><p>Seungmin blinks. “Should– should that ring a bell?”</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>.” Minho places his hands to the barrier again. He looks like he might pass out. “No way.”</p><p>Jisung steps into the doorframe. “Seungmin,” he starts quietly, “you can’t be serious.”</p><p>“Do you know him?” Seungmin asks, suddenly frustrated.</p><p>“Everyone knew of him.” Jisung shifts his weight between his feet.</p><p>“But do you <em>know</em> him?”</p><p>“Yes, God! Like I said, he was your friend. Any friend of yours was one of mine.”</p><p>“Then why say everyone ‘knew of him’? Who’s ‘everyone’?” Seungmin asks.</p><p>“You’re asking the wrong questions now,” Minho says.</p><p>Seungmin squeezes his bottle. He thinks he could break it if it wasn’t metal. “What should I be asking then, huh? Aren’t you dead? Why are you here? Why are you in my fucking mirror?”</p><p>“Seung–”</p><p>“That’s more like it.” Minho appears almost wistful.</p><p>On second thought, maybe Seungmin could break the bottle. “I know this isn’t a joke, but you sure are treating it like one, Lee Minho. Tell me what you want already so you can leave.”</p><p>“If only it was that easy.” The ghost sighs. “Alright, look. I didn’t want to bother you, but–”</p><p>Seungmin sneers. Minho glares at him.</p><p>“<em>But</em>. I’m out of options. Believe me, I wouldn’t willingly ask you for help if you were the last person alive.”</p><p>Jisung fully re-enters the bathroom and rests against the wall facing the mirror. “I wouldn’t ask him either,” he says, “but you’re here bothering us both. Talk.”</p><p>“I’m trying. God, let the dead speak.” Minho inhales deeply. “Okay, well. I’m not alive. You know that. I should’ve passed on years ago, but I didn’t, and I don’t know why.</p><p>“I’ve tried everything, talked to everyone in my family and who I was close to. Well, except for you. I didn’t think I needed to, but I was wrong, I guess. Now I’m here, and you’re all I’ve got.”</p><p>Seungmin sucks in a dry breath. He drinks more water until there’s none left in his bottle, but it’s not enough. His head is pounding. “Why me?”</p><p>Minho gestures to Jisung. “Like he said. I was your best friend in high school, and you were mine.”</p><p>“But– but I would remember you,” Seungmin says. It sounds less convincing than he'd like.</p><p>“Would you?”</p><p>“Uh, yes? I remember you from my dreams. If I knew you in real life, I would remember that too.”</p><p>In the mirror, Minho’s image wavers.</p><p>Jisung presses the heels of his hands to his eyes and doubles over, as if in pain.</p><p>“Jisung–” Seungmin stands, but the world spins. He tries to steady himself. “Shit. Ji, are you okay?”</p><p>His roommate tilts his head upward, as if trying to will away tears. “Min,” Jisung says. Nothing else. His voice is too thick.</p><p>“Seungmin.” Minho’s voice is firmer. Seungmin turns. The ghost is fading, as if returning to the fog of the shower. “I’m running out of energy right now. You should get some more rest.”</p><p>“What? But I don’t know how to help you.”</p><p>“We’ll talk more later. If it helps–”</p><p>Minho disappears. Seungmin is left with no reflection.</p><p>He looks down at his hands to check if he’s real. He is, he thinks. God, he feels faint. Seungmin’s body starts to puddle on the floor, knees knocking on the tile. Jisung rushes over to grab his shoulders, keeping at least his upper body upright. Their heads collide, and it hurts, but Seungmin takes it as more proof he’s alive.</p><p>“Seung,” Jisung says. “I need to get ready for work.”</p><p>Seungmin strings together some noises. He’s too drained for whole words.</p><p>“I’m gonna take you back to your room now. Don’t die on me, yeah?”</p><p>“Ha,” Seungmin says. “Die.”</p><p>Jisung wrestles Seungmin onto his feet, doing his best to lug his roommate down the hall to his bedroom. Maybe if Changbin were here to sling him over his shoulders or scoop him into a bridal carry.</p><p>Bridal. Like they’re married. Seungmin giggles to himself.</p><p>Jisung tosses aside Seungmin’s blankets and all but shoves him onto the bed. He adjusts the pillows under his roommate’s head and tucks him in, then he dips back out of the room. By the time Jisung returns with snacks and the water bottle, refilled, Seungmin looks to be out cold.</p><p>Jisung makes to leave again but stops. He picks up Seungmin’s dream journal and flips through the pages, skimming through the details of his roommate’s memories. One way or another, everything comes up Minho.</p><p>He closes the notebook and gently returns it. As Jisung turns away, a single, stray tear falls from his eye. Seungmin pretends not to notice.</p><p> </p><p>≑</p><p> </p><p>Between rough sleep and longer, more frequent naps, Seungmin’s dream journal fills out considerably over the next several days, far faster than his planner. When he sets up the calendar and sleep tracker for next month, he wonders when he’ll have to buy another notebook.</p><p>Minho hasn’t shown up in the mirror again, and Seungmin still has no reflection, but the ghost has appeared in almost every dream since then — in short fragments of scenes, or ones long and drawn-out and cinematic.</p><p>There’s always something different about him when he shows up, something that tugs at Seungmin’s subconscious. A new hair color or out-of-fashion hairstyle that somehow suits him; little, glaring details, like a golden National Honor Society pin or a purple letterman jacket with several patches Seungmin recognizes, but can’t quite place. He has a pin and jacket too, tucked away at his parents’ house, but he doesn’t know why Minho has them.</p><p>After a couple days, Seungmin starts highlighting the details that bother him the most.</p><p>In one dream, he’s at his alma mater, staring at a giant corkboard covered in posters and business cards. At the center of everything is a dozen flyers reading FUTURE LEE-DERS: MARK LEE FOR ASB PRESIDENT &amp; MINHO LEE FOR ASB VICE PRESIDENT. It’s odd, first because ASB is a high school thing. And Seungmin does remember when Mark was ASB President, when he was a junior and Mark was a senior, but Minho wasn’t his running mate. He wasn’t even there.</p><p>In another dream, Seungmin is one of several hostages somehow trapped inside Cloud Gate. They can see through the reflective sculpture, but tourists can’t see them. A one-way cage. Something about the scene makes the hostages feel like they’re about to die at their captor’s hands, but then a giant yellow school bus appears out of nowhere and drives through Millennium Park, headed right toward the Bean. Minho is driving.</p><p>These things cling to his brain long after he writes them down. They build up in his memory, one atop the other, weighing him down. <em>Heavy.</em> It tacks on more dreams to carry, but Seungmin’s body isn’t strong enough anymore to go an entire day without at least one long nap.</p><p>He’s sure his exhaustion seeps through when he’s on camera, but as easy as his job may seem, he can’t afford to slack off. If he’s not busy, he starts thinking, and that’s never a good idea.</p><p>Seungmin enters the bathroom again, this time to do makeup to film a video and go out. He sets up his iPad on a tripod. He can’t see himself in the front camera either, but he can take pictures. When they hit his gallery, he has until he blinks to examine himself. Pallid and fragile, but alive.</p><p>He washes his face, moisturizes, primes. The next step is brows. Seungmin opens the camera app. Reflected in the front camera is a million cutouts of Minho’s face.</p><p>Seungmin shouts and fumbles his brow pencil, tossing it into the sink.</p><p>Minho lets out the most excited, giddy laugh. It strikes deep in Seungmin’s stacking dream memory. How full it feels. How real.</p><p>“Wow, seeing you scared in person is <em>way</em> better than any dream,” Minho says, wiping a fake tear. The other faces in the filter move when he does, but only the big one in the middle talks.</p><p>Seungmin huffs. “If you weren’t dead, I’d kill you myself.”</p><p>“Aw. Now say it without crying.”</p><p>“What do you want, Minho?”</p><p>Minho beams. He returns to form with just one face. “I thought maybe you missed me.”</p><p>“Like I don’t see you enough in my dreams,” Seungmin says.</p><p>“Ooh.” Minho raises an eyebrow. “Tell me more.”</p><p>Seungmin reaches past his tripod to retrieve the brow pencil. In the screen, he stares over Minho’s shoulder at the wall behind himself. Weird ghost optics. “I’ve already seen you in my mirror, you know. Why do you keep showing up in my dreams but not there?” he asks, motioning toward the mirror, and then to the space around his own head. “Or out here, like a normal ghost?”</p><p>“Too much effort,” Minho says. “I’ve been trying to rest for years. The whole in-person ghost thing gets exhausting after a while.”</p><p>“Then why bother showing up at all?”</p><p>“Clearly the dreams weren’t enough for you. I had to get your attention somehow.”</p><p>Seungmin twists the pencil closed and takes a few pictures from different angles.</p><p>“Or I could just tell you how they look,” Minho says.</p><p>“I don’t trust your judgment,” Seungmin replies, flipping through the pictures.</p><p>Minho snorts. “Fair. They look fine though.”</p><p>Seungmin agrees, but he won’t give Minho the satisfaction. He pretends to scrutinize the pictures, even though he can’t see himself anymore, then deletes them and applies eyeshadow primer.</p><p>“Alright, so. I see you now. How am I supposed to help you move on?” Seungmin asks.</p><p>“That’s the question, isn’t it?”</p><p>“It is. That’s why I asked.” Seungmin wishes he knew how pigmented this eyeshadow would be. It’s a new palette, all warm browns and shimmer. “You said we were best friends?”</p><p>“And Jisung confirmed.”</p><p>“Right. Look, I don’t trust you, but I know Jisung wouldn’t lie to me,” Seungmin says, swiping a base shade on his lids. “He’s my best friend now, and I remember everything I know about him. If we were best friends once, I would remember you like that too.”</p><p>“I think that’s the problem,” Minho says. “You <em>don’t</em> remember me. You need to.”</p><p>“Uh huh.” Seungmin falls into silence for some time. “How does it look so far?”</p><p>“Blend a bit more near the crease. You’re almost done.”</p><p>“Thanks.” Seungmin does. “Right, okay, so I have to remember you as my friend and then you’re gone? That simple?”</p><p>Minho narrows his eyes. “Obviously not, because I’m still here. It’s more complicated than that.” He rests his chin on his left fist, as if thinking.</p><p>“How about this: you don’t remember me, that’s one thing. But you’re you. How far back do the rest of your memories go? Are there times you just can’t remember, no matter how hard you try? Or that are hard to think about?”</p><p>Seungmin points to his right eye with the end of his brush. Minho gives him a thumbs up. The younger man rifles through his memories as he works on his left eye.</p><p>His first memory is of his mom reading to him in their living room. The overhead light was warm, and he sat in her lap.</p><p>He can recall his first childhood crush and heartbreak, his first time pitching a baseball and swinging a bat. Friends and license plates and the too-sour lemon bars a friend’s dad made for him on his birthday one year in elementary school.</p><p>The first neighbor who moved away. The first death. The deaths that followed.</p><p>And the void.</p><p>Seungmin’s hand quivers.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says.</p><p>Minho’s eyes lock onto Seungmin’s hand and his slightly smudged eyeshadow. He straightens his posture. His spectral head brushes the top of the camera frame. “Yeah what?”</p><p>“Yeah, there’s stuff that– that’s hard to think about.”</p><p>“Like?”</p><p>Seungmin deadpans. Minho rolls his eyes.</p><p>“The first step is saying something,” Minho says. “I’m not Jisung, you know, I don’t just know these things. You don’t have to tell me every little detail, but I need to know <em>something</em>.”</p><p>Seungmin packs on more of the base shade to cover his mistake. The words pile up on his tongue, crashing into one another. If nothing moves fast, the collisions could be fatal.</p><p>“I’m not”—Seungmin pauses to take a deep breath, then another—“I’m not good with death. Or losing things. Losing people.”</p><p>Minho nods in acknowledgement. Seungmin continues.</p><p>“I’ve seen a lot of death. People in my family and who I was close to. But even losing a toy or having a friend move away is… hard. For me. I’m not good with loss.”</p><p>“Like attachment issues?” Minho asks. “Or just grief?”</p><p>“Um. Both, I think. Losing things that are a part of me or– or people who’ve shaped me.”</p><p>“Gotcha. Yeah.” Minho hums. “Do you– would it be okay if you told me about the first death? Or one that’s smaller, if it’s easier for you?”</p><p>Seungmin swallows down the emotions in his throat. “My fish. In first grade.”</p><p>Minho squeezes his eyes shut, as if holding back a laugh.</p><p>“This isn’t funny, asshole.”</p><p>“Sorry.” Minho doesn’t sound sorry. “Sorry. I mean it. Keep going.”</p><p>“What if I don’t want to now.” But Seungmin closes his eyeshadow palette and sets down the used brush, reaching for black eyeliner. Minho gives another thumbs up for the left eye.</p><p>“When I was in kindergarten, I won a goldfish at a carnival. I named it Silver.” Minho wheezes. Seungmin softly smiles. “It was my first pet. I did my best not to overfeed it, but it wasn’t only me taking care of it. My parents and sister helped. Silver lived way longer than my classmates’ fishes, which I was proud of, but then it died too.</p><p>“I was inconsolable for a couple days,” Seungmin says, a dry laugh punctuating the sentiment. “Part of me knew it wasn’t that serious, but it was my first pet. How could you not be sad?”</p><p>“But it was a goldfish,” Minho says. “All pet fishes die at some point.”</p><p>Seungmin shrugs. “I know that now. But at the time, it was like my world shattered and no one could fix it. I moved on eventually, but it hurt to think about for a long time.”</p><p>“Hm. I didn’t think of it like that.”</p><p>“Clearly,” Seungmin replies, lacking bite. He sighs and focuses on the rest of the look. When he’s done, he still takes pictures for reassurance, but he stands back and lets Minho judge.</p><p>Minho whistles. “Not bad, Kim Seungmin.”</p><p>Seungmin scoffs, but his grin grows. “Bet that’s nicer than anything you used to say to me in high school.”</p><p>A conflicted noise leaves Minho’s mouth. Seungmin moves to clarify, but Minho shakes his head. “Don’t– I mean. Yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah <em>what?</em>”</p><p>“Funny.” Minho doesn’t continue.</p><p>He meets Seungmin’s eyes. They study each other, unwavering.</p><p>Seungmin suddenly whips his head to look in the mirror, and Minho is there in an instant. He looks back at the iPad, and there Minho is. Seungmin raises his right hand, and Minho raises his left to match. Seungmin quickly drops his arm and Minho does the same. The younger man tilts his head and the ghost follows. One of them jumps and the other meets him at the top.</p><p>A mirror image, except not. Two different people, or one person and his mirror and the ghost who happened to be there too.</p><p>“So. You getting enough sleep these days?” Minho asks.</p><p>Seungmin turns off the iPad and the lights.</p><p> </p><p>≑</p><p> </p><p>Spring in the desert was either unsettlingly chilly or unbearably warm. Desert weather was nothing but extremes. Never comfortable. This spring was already too warm, like the climate had cannonballed into mid-summer.</p><p>Baseball season was over, abruptly cut short. It showed. The neat curve of the infield was jagged, overrun with overgrown grass and dandelions. There were weeds. Spiderwebs decorated the inside of the dugouts like burnt out Christmas lights.</p><p>Yet Seungmin was here, alone on the field, running, though not from base to base. He brushed up against the chain-link fence around the outfield, like the gym class kids did when they had to run “cross-country” across school instead of doing the mile around the track.</p><p>Seungmin was running. He hated running if it wasn’t life or death (or baseball). But because he was someone who did everything with purpose, he was here because he knew he had to be, or else he would start thinking.</p><p>When he ran, he didn’t have to think. He could just feel.</p><p>He felt the blades of grass slicing his ankles, felt the sweat pooling at his lower back that he’d be disgusted by later. He felt the tightness of his lungs and the shortness of his breath and the pounding of his head. He felt the stinging of tears he couldn’t stop from falling, because they hadn’t stopped falling for a month, at least when he was alone.</p><p>In public, his eyes were dry. Empty. He stopped seeing, and simply looked.</p><p>The baseball field used to be a haven for him. Seungmin couldn’t control everything, or most things, but here was one place he came close. On the mound, the push to Chan’s pull. They clutched two ends of the same string, doing everything in their power to hold it taut so the other team would trip and fall. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.</p><p>Sometimes, it was never enough to begin with.</p><p>Never enough. Seungmin was never enough.</p><p>Not confident enough to have said <em>Yes, stay</em> that day after dinner. Not perceptive enough to notice that wasn’t the right response. Not concerned enough to check whether everyone got home safe, even though that wasn’t his job, and no one was expecting him to. Not scared enough to wonder whether something was wrong, even if there was no reason to believe there was.</p><p>No. Not that last one. Seungmin was <em>too</em> scared. That’s why he said <em>No, go</em>.</p><p>Too scared to admit he feared what he wanted the most, to be open and honest, to risk rejection. It would all be a blow to his pride.</p><p>Nothing dented his precious pride in the end. But three people were still dead.</p><p> </p><p>≑</p><p> </p><p>Seungmin is on the floor again, this time rolled in his blankets. His arms rest snugly over his chest, one hand cupping the other, like a body in a casket.</p><p>Someone opens the door. He looks up. It’s Changbin.</p><p>“That explains the noise,” Changbin says.</p><p>Seungmin grumbles and shuffles himself into a sitting position, back pressed against the bedframe. “You don’t know. Could’ve been Jisung.”</p><p>“Found him passed out at the table. If it was him, the whole building would know.”</p><p>“At the table?” Seungmin snakes an arm out from his cocoon to grab his glasses. They’re too far. “Shit. Was he still working on lesson plans?”</p><p>In a few swift movements, Changbin opens the curtains, snatches Seungmin’s glasses from the nightstand, and squats down in front of the younger man. He slides the glasses onto Seungmin’s face, careful until the very end, then pushes the bridge into his forehead — not hard, but just enough pressure to be annoying.</p><p>Seungmin rolls his eyes, but his exhale is soft.</p><p>“No,” Changbin says. “But he was writing something. I saw a blank notebook and forty pens.”</p><p>“Good. He’s been working too hard. He never tells me stories anymore.”</p><p>“From what I hear, your life is entertainment enough.” Changbin moves to sit next to Seungmin, shucking off his black backpack and setting it aside. “Maybe it’s giving him ideas.”</p><p>“Oh, God.” Seungmin’s head droops. “I don’t wanna know what he’s been telling you.”</p><p>“Yes you do.”</p><p>“Yes I do. What has he been telling you?”</p><p>Changbin laughs, very full and very real. Seungmin joins in, but it pains his chest. His upper body is tight, his neck and back knotted like headphones. He hunches into himself. Asthmatic as he is, breathing isn’t this hard.</p><p>Changbin notices. His laughter dies out.</p><p>“He’s been telling me you’re haunted, and that it’s killing you,” he says.</p><p>Seungmin tries to laugh again, but this time it comes out as a dry cough. One, then another, then another. A chain.</p><p>Changbin reaches for the water bottle. He rubs the younger man’s back as his lungs fight air.</p><p>Slowly, eventually, Seungmin’s lungs win, but they take a great deal of damage. Even after Changbin helps him sip water and guides him through deep breaths, there’s a vice grip around his trachea. It hurts to breathe.</p><p>“He’s wrong,” Seungmin says, voice scratchy. “I wouldn’t call it being haunted.”</p><p>Changbin sighs. “Seungmin. I trust you. You know that, right?”</p><p>Seungmin nods.</p><p>“I also trust Jisung. Whatever he told me, I’m sure he was just being funny, so he wouldn’t sound so worried. He’s worried about you. I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but I’m worried too.</p><p>“You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, okay? I’ll work with whatever you give me. It’s my job, after all.” Changbin grins. “That’s why I dropped by, anyway. I didn’t see anything new to edit.”</p><p>Seungmin’s next exhale is shaky. “Right, yeah,” he says. “Thank you. I do have something for you. Footage, I mean.”</p><p>“Okay. Want me to bring you your laptop?”</p><p>“Please.” Seungmin makes grabby hand motions, both arms free from his blankets.</p><p>Changbin huffs a laugh, standing up and retrieving the computer from the desk across the room. It’s thin and silver, with a single sticker over the logo.</p><p>“This is new. Cats?” he asks, handing over the laptop. “Aren’t you a dog person?”</p><p>“Yeah, but.” Seungmin shrugs.</p><p>“But?”</p><p>“I don’t know. It was lying around for a long time. I just felt like putting it on.”</p><p>The sticker shows the stages of a falling cat, drawn with a single line, with a white to black gradient as it goes from belly up to landing on its feet. It’s simple, yet complicated, and so unlike Seungmin to buy for himself. Certainly nothing Changbin or Jisung would ever give him.</p><p>He traces the single line from the top of the white cat’s tail, down to the black cat’s paws. A violent cold chill runs through his body, likely from the metal of the computer, but his fingertips heat up, almost charged, as if something is guiding only his hand along.</p><p>When he finally opens his laptop and glances up, Changbin is studying him. It’s part of the editor job. Seungmin is a spot the difference puzzle, and Changbin is the answer key. If there’s something he doesn’t know, the whole operation is fucked.</p><p>Changbin’s eyes light up. “Is your <em>ghost</em> a cat person?”</p><p>Seungmin peers into his dark computer screen. A shadowy suggestion of a figure appears instead of a full-color haunt, but Minho is still there. He winks and raises his hands, as if to meow.</p><p>Seungmin slams the laptop shut. His hand burns, then freezes, then loses feeling altogether.</p><p>“I’ll take that as a yes.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Seungmin’s right hand doesn’t regain feeling — not after a couple minutes, not after a few hours. He has control over the rest of his arm, but his wrist and hand drag behind like whiny kids. Changbin massages his hand, Jisung fashions a sling so he can rest his arm on his chest, and all of them go for a walk in the evening cold, but no solution helps. His hand and wrist are useless.</p><p>He can’t work like this. His brain whirs.</p><p>To distract him, Changbin and Jisung take the rest of the night off from work and crash in the living room. They order delivery and talk over bougie Whole Foods soda. Seungmin sits at the dining table and nurses a glass in his left hand, occasionally rolling it around to catch a glimpse of Minho in the light.</p><p>Whenever Changbin reacts to Jisung recounting a story from high school, Seungmin remembers the older man didn’t grow up with the two of them. He fits in so naturally, like he’s been there all along. If Seungmin were anyone else, he would think those two were the childhood friends and he was the late addition.</p><p>It makes sense. Seungmin keeps his circle small. His friends now are his core friends from elementary school, the people he’s grown up with and come to trust with his life, and who’ve done the same for him. He cuts people off more than he collects them.</p><p>Rare is the newcomer like Changbin, who he met a couple years ago in a required chem class. He was the first real friend Seungmin made since high school, when he grew closer to members of ASB and the baseball and softball teams. Chan, his sturdy catcher, and Jiwoo with her smile, and–</p><p>His glass shatters before Seungmin registers the image in its surface. His other hand is numb too.</p><p>“Seungmin?”</p><p>Jisung and Changbin scramble to move him away from the broken glass. His left arm trails across the table, and it flops to his side as the guys stand him up. Seungmin doesn’t even notice the blood on his forearm. Gravity threatens to throw him to the wood. Dead weight.</p><p>“Shit. He cut himself,” Changbin says. “Hannie, go get the first aid kit. I’ve got him.”</p><p>Changbin maneuvers him to the kitchen sink and does his best to rinse micro shards out of the cuts, which are small but spit red. He quickly dries the younger man’s forearm with clean paper towels, just as Jisung rushes back in with the first aid kit. He elevates Seungmin’s left arm on Changbin’s shoulder and applies pressure with gauze, and together they keep Seungmin steady.</p><p>“Seungmin, talk to me,” Jisung says.</p><p>“I can’t feel anything in my arms.” Seungmin chuckles weakly. “I was thinking about something and then my left hand gave out. That’s what I get for thinking, I guess.”</p><p>“What were you thinking about?” Changbin asks.</p><p>“You guys. Myself. People I knew in high school.” Jisung nudges Seungmin just as he starts to tremble, like he could tell. “Ji. Sungie. Baby. Do you remember Chan?”</p><p>Jisung laughs, but it’s hollow. “Yep,” he says. “We still talk.”</p><p>“Ohhh. I should do that.” Seungmin’s head is cloudy. He zones out for a few seconds, then perks up. “Oh, right. Well, I was thinking about Chan, and Jiwoo from the softball team, and, uh.”</p><p>He deflates. Changbin’s shoulder stiffens, and he reaches out with his other arm.</p><p>“And someone else,” Seungmin says finally, the words trickling out. “I don’t remember their name, but yeah. That’s when my hand went numb.”</p><p>Jisung presses too hard on the wounds, not that Seungmin can feel it. “That’s okay, Minnie,” he says. “Do you remember what they looked like?”</p><p>“Kinda? They were wearing white and purple too, like they were on the team, but it wasn’t a uniform. More like… a letterman. Brown hair. That’s all I’ve got.”</p><p>Jisung inspects the gauze. A few blood spots are darkening. He continues applying pressure, glancing back up at Seungmin, whose expression sours.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Jisung continues. “I think I know who you’re talking about.”</p><p>Seungmin’s features smooth over. “Yeah? Do you remember their name?”</p><p>“I–” Jisung sucks air between his teeth. He scans the room for something and stalls. Seungmin can’t tell what he’s searching for, but it seems to trouble his friend. “No. No, I don’t.”</p><p>“That’s okay.” Seungmin tilts his head as if to shrug a shoulder. “It’s been awhile. Anyway–”</p><p>“Wait. I think it started with an M?”</p><p>Changbin frowns at Jisung. Jisung’s mouth parts like he didn’t mean for that to slip out. Seungmin casts his gaze over to the broken glass.</p><p>“M.” The letter swirls around Seungmin’s head, now less cloudy and more foggy, like he could stumble through his thoughts and run into something important. What that might be, though, he’s not yet sure. “Mark Lee? But he wasn’t on the team. I can’t think of anyone else.”</p><p>Jisung releases his breath. With his other hand, he keeps Seungmin’s arm elevated while Changbin grabs antibiotic cream and bandages from the first aid kit. He strains his neck to observe the mess on the table, flitting his eyes between it and Seungmin, who feels compelled to keep staring at the damage that’s already been done.</p><p>
  <em>Is it rubbernecking if the wreck is right in front of you? If you helped cause it?</em>
</p><p>Seungmin startles. He’s not sure where those questions came from, or why they sounded like when Minho’s and his voice overlapped. They unsettle something in his gut.</p><p>He and Jisung lock eyes, tethering themselves to each other. They follow each other’s gaze to the living room window, where their eyes should not meet again. Except the glass is reflective, because it’s nighttime and they have the light on, so they’re met with a makeshift mirror.</p><p>Seungmin expects to see Minho, or to see Jisung and Changbin tending to invisible wounds, but in his place is no longer nothing of himself, but not quite something. He sees a human-shaped outline. A suggestion of a person without the substance, as if he is hardly there, and all it would take for him to vanish is a steady hand and an eraser.</p><p>His head clears suddenly, and he slams into the thought. Minho isn’t haunting him, he thinks. He’s draining Seungmin of life.</p><p>Seungmin blinks. The outline is gone, and Minho isn’t there to fill in the gaps. For once, Seungmin wishes he was.</p><p> </p><p>≑</p><p> </p><p>Tonight’s dreams are rapid-fire, passing the baton before Seungmin can process each scene.</p><p>He rolls down a grassy hill straight out of Windows XP, which leads him through a white-walled art gallery displaying empty frames, and out into a dim alley that narrows more each second. A hundred yards away, a shiny silver car on fire turns into the alley and speeds right for him.</p><p>Between that and being crushed, he’s not sure what will end him first. He pushes against the unyielding sides of the alley and braces for impact.</p><p>Just as the car is about to hit him, the walls close in.</p><p>Instead of the phantom pain his subconscious anticipates, it’s as if he’s lost in a dark hallway or passing through black sheets hung on a laundry line. An absence of light washes over him, but it does not drown him. He feels an echo of the peace he felt freefalling, all those dreams ago. He is at once heavier and lighter, full and empty, everything and nothing. A void.</p><p>When his vision returns, Seungmin is standing on a flat rooftop under a cloudless sky. The sheets have tacked themselves on the ceiling, revealing another side littered with stars and airplane trails. A warm breeze ruffles his clothes but makes him shiver. The material of his jacket is thin and mottled gray. All his clothes are gray, but they vary in shade.</p><p>He is alone on the roof until he isn’t. A small Lego robot wheels out from behind a structure, seemingly self-operated. It stops and spins once, as if confused about its path, but it course corrects and drives toward him. He watches it approach. It crashes into his ankles. The robot’s head tilts up to look at him.</p><p>Seungmin takes a big step backward, and the robot follows him. It bumps into his leg a second time and waits for acknowledgment. Another step back, again, and again. His back hits the railing. The robot almost pins him there.</p><p>He bends down to examine the robot. The model is old, like it would have been new when he was in middle school. He wasn’t in robotics growing up, but his friend Hyunjin was, and Seungmin would go to the club room with him to wait so they could walk home afterward. He thought he didn’t absorb much there. Apparently, he gleaned enough to recognize the ankle-biter.</p><p>This is the kind of Lego robot younger kids work with before moving up to VEX robotics or switching to the vehicle problem in Odyssey of the Mind, like Hyunjin did. The older robotics kids still sometimes toy around with the simpler bots, so they can mentor younger students.</p><p>Seungmin remembers once observing an elementary school robotics session in high school, though he’s not sure why. One kid’s face scrunched up because they didn’t understand what they were working on. They lit up when a high schooler went to help, but the high schooler didn’t solve the issue for them. He instead reassured them that there was more than one way to approach a problem. All it takes is imagination and determination, and the kid had both. They could do it, the high schooler said.</p><p>The kid worked extra hard that day and grinned while showing off their progress to the high schooler, who then turned to Seungmin and beamed even harder. The high schooler’s presence was already oddly familiar. Friendly. Seeing him, now, fully, is a slap in the face.</p><p>In the memory, Seungmin smiled back.</p><p>In the dream, he is unsteady.</p><p>The display on the robot’s brick cycles between a capital M, an arrow pointing to the structure the machine appeared from, and a skull. Like a sick joke. Seungmin doesn’t want to believe it.</p><p>The robot stares him in the face. He feels like it’s egging him on. He peers into its empty mechanical eyes, then glances across the rooftop. No one is there, but there is a shadow of a person on the ground. If he goes around the corner, he thinks he knows who he’ll find.</p><p>Seungmin doesn’t go check.</p><p> </p><p>≑</p><p> </p><p>He sleeps for sixteen hours. Sensation returns to his arms but vanishes from his legs.</p><p>Jisung is at work, so Changbin comes over and helps Seungmin out. Despite Seungmin’s protests, he changes the bandages on his arm and helps him drink water. He listens to Seungmin recall last night’s dreams and writes them down for him in the dream journal, as a reminder of what happened. So he doesn’t forget.</p><p>Seungmin grumbles but doesn’t fight.</p><p>Eventually, Changbin does his own work, sitting at Seungmin’s desk and, occasionally, at the foot of his bed. It’s strangely comforting. Seungmin can’t feel shit in his legs, and he’s deathly afraid of losing feeling in his chest or altogether, and it’s been weeks since he’s had a reflection. Minho might kill him.</p><p>But at least he isn’t alone.</p><p>When Jisung returns home with takeout, the three of them eat together before he and Changbin switch off. The editor goes home for the night, and Seungmin’s roommate moves into his room. After ages of figuring out how to help him wind down for the night, Jisung looks exhausted. Seungmin almost envies him.</p><p>“Ji, go sleep in your own bed,” he says. “I’ll be okay.”</p><p>Jisung waves him off, already setting down his mattress topper on the floor. “I’ll be fine. It’ll be like having a sleepover! Like the good old days or whatever.”</p><p>“Are you sure? I was gonna pull an all-nighter.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“I slept sixteen hours,” Seungmin says. “I tried to work all day to make myself sleepy again, but I’m just more awake. Maybe I need to mess with my sleep schedule.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Jisung replies. He scoots his makeshift bed closer to Seungmin’s real one and tilts his laptop toward them both. “Let me join you then.”</p><p>“But you’ve got work tomorrow.”</p><p>“Nothing a strong coffee can’t fix. Now hurry up, or I’ll choose the movie.”</p><p>“But Jisung–”</p><p>“Seungmin.” His friend crosses his arms. “The kids don’t have music class tomorrow. I’ll basically be sitting in the teacher’s lounge all day. It’s fine.”</p><p>“If you’re sure.”</p><p>“I’m an adult, Minnie. And I’m your friend. Friends don’t let their friends pull all-nighters alone.”</p><p>Seungmin cracks a smile. “Okay,” he concedes. “Well, friends also don’t let their friends starve while watching a movie, so. Make us popcorn?”</p><p>Jisung rolls his eyes but stands up. “It’ll be nacho cheese because I said so.”</p><p>“You do that. What do you wanna watch?”</p><p>“We’re watching <em>Up.</em>”</p><p>Seungmin clicks his tongue. “You wanna cry?”</p><p>“Crying makes me fall asleep,” Jisung says as he steps into the hall. “It’ll be good for you.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They cry, of course. Only Jisung falls asleep.</p><p>In the still of night, Seungmin stares out the window in front of his desk. It’s not reflective this time, so his view of the cityscape is uninterrupted. From where he’s lying, his full body mirror isn’t visible. There’s no way to see himself, which is what he wants.</p><p>Seungmin’s plan is not to sleep anymore.</p><p>He thought about it after realizing Minho’s been trying to wear him down. The ghost said it himself — the dreams were part of his plan to get Seungmin’s attention, but they weren’t enough. Seungmin was the last resort, after family and friends and everyone else who Minho actually cared about. Desperate measures and all that.</p><p>And, okay, Seungmin gets it now. Minho was in the robotics memory, and he was the person in the letterman he was thinking about the other night, the M name that Jisung avoided. Seungmin knew of Minho before he died. He knows Minho.</p><p>That didn’t solve anything. The ghost is still here, and Seungmin is falling apart, and he doesn’t know what he’s missing.</p><p>What he does know is that everything comes back to his dreams. Dodging reflective surfaces while awake has become a skill, but he risks facing Minho while unconscious. The way not to see him is not to dream, not to sleep, for as long as possible.</p><p>Seungmin adjusts his position and reaches for his dream journal. It’s a new one, brown leather and barely used. He tightly grips it in his hands before carefully leaning over and tucking it under his bed. Out of sight.</p><p>He plugs his headphones into his phone and lies back down, pulling up a show.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The first day goes over well enough. Seungmin’s legs regain feeling, and it’s just his left hand out of commission. He uploads a video and responds to comments, ignoring ones about him looking different or unwell. He waves off Jisung’s concern and takes a train into the city proper to walk. He drifts aimlessly for several blocks, stopping only to eat lunch at a quaint café and take pictures.</p><p>Despite the sling and his aching feet, it’s the most normal day he’s had in recent memory.</p><p>Day two is hell. He’s bedridden and feels like jelly. He’s unmotivated, uninspired. It’s hard to focus on movies or YouTube or music, but he hates the silence. Hours feel like centuries.</p><p>Changbin is with him on day two. He makes Seungmin tea, draws him a bath, sings to him, plays ASMR. Seungmin almost gives up, feeling Changbin’s voice lull him into a sense of security and comfort. His body settles down and his mind begins to quiet.</p><p>
  <em>If you fall asleep now, you’ll never wake up. Minho will never let you live. Think of The Void.</em>
</p><p>The invasive thoughts flip a switch in Seungmin’s body. Paresthesia hits like a truck. Blood rushes hot through his veins, and his nerves are alight. He feels like he’s being fried. A scream tears through the bedroom, and he’s too overwhelmed by sensation to recognize it as his own.</p><p>“Seungmin?” Changbin trips over the desk chair in his haste to get to his friend. He hovers over him, not wanting to do something to make his pain worse. “I’m here, Seungminnie.”</p><p>“Pins and needles,” Seungmin chokes out. “All over. I’m dying.”</p><p>“You’re not dying,” Changbin says. His voice shakes. “Jisung called dibs on killing you.”</p><p>“It <em>hurts</em>, Binnie. Everything hurts.”</p><p>Seungmin cries. He doesn’t bother hiding it. He cries for himself, for his friends who have to deal with him while his body and brain are throwing a bitch fit.</p><p>For Minho.</p><p>Minho, whose presence in his life has been frustrating. He’s been part of Seungmin’s life for the shortest amount of time, but it feels like he’s been here for years. In his head, Seungmin knows he has been. Minho’s a piece of his puzzle, but he’s one Seungmin has been trying to ignore until the end, even as the rest of the image needs him to be whole.</p><p>Every brushstroke makes the painting, but Seungmin doesn’t want the painting. He doesn’t want an end. He doesn’t want to preserve these memories. He wants to forget.</p><p>He hates not being able to see himself in the mirror, however vain it is. He can’t do his job if he can’t control his body or stay awake. He knows what he must confront if he wants to be functional again, if he wants to live and be alive. He understands it will be the worst pain imaginable.</p><p>He knows and he knows, but he can’t accept it. He doesn’t want any of it.</p><p>Most of all, he doesn’t want to lose Minho. Not a second time.</p><p> </p><p>≑</p><p> </p><p>On the third sleepless day, everything changes.</p><p>Jisung and Changbin are at work, but both pledged to hurry home as soon as possible. They taped notes to the kitchen counter, the dining table, and the fridge. Changbin’s is on a torn piece of graph paper, neat grid lines ending at uneven points, cursive written in Sharpie on the lines. Jisung’s is purple marker on mint green construction paper, clearly plucked from his stack of school supplies.</p><p>Seungmin is alone, and he is a ghost in his own home.</p><p>The lack of sleep is catching up to him. No part of his body is numb today, but the world around him is hazy and uncertain. Things look distorted or the wrong size; he swears his chopsticks aren’t this small in his hands, and that his hands aren’t always this large and unwieldy.</p><p>Physically, he is all present. Mentally and emotionally, well.</p><p>Too late, Seungmin realizes what’s making it worse this morning is no water. He left his bottle in his room, and he’s afraid to reach for a glass and accidentally break it. It’s a feat to finish his food and to keep it down. He’s almost content to leave it at that, but he doesn’t want it to be dehydration that does him in.</p><p>Slowly, eventually, Seungmin walks down the hall. His metal bottle is on his desk, on the opposite side of the room from the door. In the doorframe, he squeezes his eyes shut, trying not to let his attention wander to his unmade bed or, worse, the full-length mirror. He’s here for his bottle. He'll just grab it and leave.</p><p>Keeping his head down, Seungmin enters his room.</p><p>“Back already, I see.”</p><p>Minho’s voice makes Seungmin pause, but only for a moment. He picks up his bottle and turns back toward the door.</p><p>“You know, it’s rude to ignore people when they’re talking to you,” Minho says.</p><p>Seungmin does not speak to him. He exits the room, breathing shallowly and pushing himself forward a step at a time. When he returns to the main part of the apartment, his lungs are tight. He sits back down at the dining table. From where he’s sitting, he can see the microwave. Can see Minho in the microwave.</p><p>“Seungmin,” he repeats. “Kim Seungmin.”</p><p>“Go away, Minho. I’m having breakfast.”</p><p>“Your bowl is empty, and your chopsticks are on the table.”</p><p>“Minho.” Seungmin looks up. The ghost is misshapen in the microwave door. “Leave me alone.”</p><p>Minho crosses his arms. “I haven’t properly talked to you in days. I miss you.”</p><p>“Well, I think you see me enough in my dreams,” Seungmin says. “Deal with it.”</p><p>“I’ll deal with it as soon as you deal with your problems,” Minho replies.</p><p>Seungmin shoots up. He sways on his feet, but he stands. “What did you say?”</p><p>“You heard me. You’re not that far gone yet.” The ghost exhales, like he’s equally as tired.</p><p>“Fuck you.”</p><p>“That’s all you can say to me?” Minho’s laugh lacks mirth. “You’re no better than you were in high school. Sound the same too.”</p><p>Seungmin hobbles over to the microwave. “And what the fuck does that mean?”</p><p>“It means, Seungmin,” Minho spits, “that you haven’t learned anything! Or that you have, and you’re choosing to ignore it, like you ignore everything that scares you.”</p><p>“What do you know? You’re dead. You don’t know anything about me.”</p><p>“And you’re right, like you always are. Congratulations. Please collect your prize after the show.”</p><p>Seungmin scowls and walks away. He refills his water bottle and drinks from it like, if he tries hard enough, he can drown out the white noise in his head. His body is too hot and too cold at once. He needs to shower.</p><p>Back to his room he goes. He wants to rush, but he fears moving wrong and going numb. He collects his belongings at a snail’s pace, his back to the mirror.</p><p>“Seungmin.”</p><p>“I told you to leave me alone,” Seungmin insists. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say.”</p><p>“And I don’t care,” Minho replies. “I’m not talking to you to bother you, seriously. I’m trying to tell you to get some sleep.”</p><p>Seungmin hangs his head. “Isn’t it enough to drain me of energy while I’m asleep? Why do you have to ruin my life while I’m awake too?”</p><p>“What are you talking about?”</p><p>“Don’t pretend like you don’t know,” Seungmin says. He glares at Minho in the mirror. “I’m <em>dying</em>, Minho, and it’s your fault.”</p><p>Minho’s image turns into static for a couple seconds, then re-forms. “Seungmin, what?” he asks. “I’m not doing anything.”</p><p>“Liar!”</p><p>“Kim Seungmin. Seungmin Kim.” Minho’s voice is grave. It is deep, and it is resounding, and it is scared. Minho is scared. “I died. I’m <em>dead</em>. I can’t do anything to you.”</p><p>“Liar,” Seungmin repeats, whispering. He swallows. “You’re lying.”</p><p>“I’m not,” Minho says. “You’re lying to yourself.”</p><p>Several thoughts come to mind. Seungmin wants to yell some more. He wants to kick the mirror. He wants to break it. He wants to die. He wants to live. He wants to be a high schooler again. He wants to be a kid, young like he was in his first memory with his mom, before he learned about death and came to know its pale face like a friend.</p><p>He wants and he wants, but he can’t have everything. He doesn’t want everything.</p><p>Most of all, he wants Minho. He wants him to rest. He wants him to have peace and be free, but Seungmin wants Minho for himself too. He wants a friend. He wants his memories of his friend back. He wants his memories of a friend, his best friend, Minho back.</p><p>“Seungmin,” Minho says.</p><p>He looks up. The two of them don’t look that similar, but he sees how they could fit well. They complement each other. He and Minho are fundamentally different people, but they are the same in many ways.</p><p>Seungmin places his right hand to the glass. Minho meets him there, at the void, with his left.</p><p>A mirror image, except not. Two different people. One person, and another, separated by a mirror and the afterlife, but together.</p><p>“Minho,” Seungmin says. He’s crying. “You’re dead. You died.”</p><p>Minho nods. He’s crying too. “I did.”</p><p>“You <em>died.</em> And I forgot about it. About you.”</p><p>The ghost shakes his head. “You didn’t forget,” he says. “You always knew. You just didn’t know how to handle it.”</p><p>“But I didn’t recognize you,” Seungmin says. “What kind of a friend am I?”</p><p>“A grieving one. A good one. The best one I’ve ever had.”</p><p>Seungmin hiccups. “You don’t mean that.”</p><p>“I do,” Minho says. “I really do. And I forgive you.”</p><p>“For what?” Seungmin wipes his eyes.</p><p>Minho fidgets. “For– for everything. For being mad at me. For letting me go that day.”</p><p>“I– what?”</p><p>“You’ll remember,” Minho says.</p><p>He does.</p><p>Minho died midway through Seungmin’s sophomore baseball season. That day’s game was over, and their team won against their league rivals. Seungmin threw a no-hitter. It was not a perfect game, but it was like Christmas.</p><p>To celebrate, his catcher Chan invited everyone to dinner, on him. After the team meeting and the bus ride back to school, the upperclassmen made for their cars and invited their favorite underclassmen to ride with them.</p><p>Seungmin idled by, not expecting Chan to ask him to ride in his car. It wasn’t that he wasn’t friends with the catcher outside their battery, but Chan was friends with <em>everyone</em>. If there was an underclassman that other team members ignored or picked on, he would defend them and ask them to hang out with him.</p><p>Such was the case that night. Honestly, Seungmin was about to ask Jiwoo if she could take him. They were friendly enough these days, so he didn’t think she or her friends would mind. He started walking over to her car.</p><p>“Hey! Kim Seungmin! Seungmin Kim!”</p><p>Behind him, a car honked. He sighed and turned around. Minho Lee, the baseball team’s manager, drove toward him in his old red car. Seungmin saw his teammates Chan Lee, #11, and Youngtaek, #7, in the backseat. The passenger seat was empty.</p><p>When they locked eyes, Minho waved out his open window. “You look lonely,” he said. “Need a ride?”</p><p>Minho drove him to dinner. Dinner was amazing, and not having to pay was even better. It was getting home that was the problem.</p><p>Seungmin was the last one out of the restaurant. Three things happened at once. Seungmin’s sister texted and said she was in the area if he needed a ride home. Jiwoo noticed him looking for a ride earlier and offered him a seat. Minho found him after and yanked his hand as he was walking.</p><p>“Yes?” Seungmin asked.</p><p>Minho stared at him, saying nothing. Seungmin felt like a test subject under his scrutiny. Between that and the chill of the early spring night, he shivered. The manager immediately slung off his purple letterman jacket, lined with club patches, and draped it over Seungmin’s shoulders.</p><p>“I’m fine,” he said, though he didn’t take it off. “What’s up?”</p><p>“Did you say yes to any of them?” Minho asked.</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“You said your sister texted, and I overheard Jiwoo offering you a seat. You ditching me, Minnie?”</p><p>“Don’t call me that,” Seungmin said, his lips curling up into a smile. “And no, I didn’t say anything to anyone. I haven’t decided yet.”</p><p>“Then come home with me.”</p><p>“But you’ve got Dino and Tag with you, and they live on the other side of town. I don’t want you driving around forever and wasting gas.”</p><p>Minho shrugged. “They can wait, and it’s not wasting anything if it’s you. Don’t be so selfish.”</p><p>“I know, but.” Seungmin trailed off. He toyed with his phone. Minho’s eyes narrowed in on the nervous gesture.</p><p>“Hey,” he said quietly. “Look at me, Minnie.”</p><p>Seungmin did. Minho’s eyes were so brown. He’d recognize them anywhere.</p><p>“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Minho said. Seungmin felt like there was more to that sentiment, but he didn’t dare ask. “I don’t mind. But at least let me stay with you. You can wait in my car, so you’re warm.”</p><p>It was a harmless offer, but it didn’t feel like that to Seungmin, and he didn’t know why. Maybe it was Minho’s gaze, sharp yet tender, and his jacket around Seungmin’s shoulders. Maybe it was the newness of their friendship, of them not throwing insults at each other like they used to and, instead, getting to know each other despite their clashing perspectives.</p><p>Maybe it was both. Maybe it was the way both threatened to get past Seungmin’s defenses. He’s never been very good at making friends. Now that he wanted to, wanted to be Minho’s friend and know everything about him, he was scared.</p><p>There would be plenty of rides home later. Seungmin was sure of it.</p><p>“It’s okay, Minho,” he said. “My sister's nearby. I won’t be out here long.”</p><p>Minho grabbed his hand again. He interlocked their fingers. “Seungmin. Let me stay with you.”</p><p><em>Yes, stay.</em> Seungmin squeezed his hand twice, then withdrew. “No. Go home, Minho. I’ll see you tomorrow.”</p><p>Minho exhaled. His breath fogged between them. “I’m telling Coach to make you run extra.”</p><p>Seungmin rolled his eyes, but his own exhale was soft. “I look forward to it,” he said.</p><p>“See you then, Kim Seungmin. Seungmin Kim.” Minho walked away. Seungmin watched him go.</p><p>At the time, he was sure he made the right decision. Sometimes, though, you can be sure and still be wrong.</p><p>He heard the news of the accident first thing the next morning. A drunk driver sped through the four-way intersection, crashing into a red car and flipping it. No one survived.</p><p>Seungmin placed two bouquets of flowers, one at the cross memorial at the intersection and one at the memorial at school. He added freshly picked dandelions to both. The bows around them were mint green.</p><p>He returns to the present moment.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” he says.</p><p>Minho looks at him with such care. “I know. I forgive you.”</p><p>The lack of sleep finally catches up to Seungmin. He passes out.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>While he is unconscious, he does not dream.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>When he wakes up, he isn’t tired. The sun is rising again, and he is tucked in his blankets on the living room couch. His neck is stiff, and he complains about it.</p><p>“Oh my God, Seungmin.”</p><p>Jisung and Changbin startle, sitting next to each other on the couch across from him, and knock heads. Changbin places the back of his hand to Seungmin’s forehead, and Jisung grabs the metal water bottle.</p><p>“Seungmin, talk to us,” Jisung says.</p><p>“I didn’t have any dreams this time,” Seungmin says. “Most peaceful night of sleep I’ve ever had.”</p><p>Changbin lightly flicks his forehead, then rubs the area. “You piece of shit, I told you to sleep.”</p><p>“Yeah, well.” Seungmin trails off. He glances at his friends, who look as wrecked as he feels. If he’s not yet out of tears, he could cry. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“You should be,” Jisung says, voice cracking. He bends down to hover a hug over his roommate, who sits up and completes the embrace. Jisung sniffles in his ear. “We were fucking worried sick.”</p><p>“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”</p><p>Changbin joins the hug. They stay there for some time, basking in the presence of each other, only letting go when Seungmin taps out. The three of them separate and tend to him, no questions asked. Of all the emotions, he’s confused.</p><p>“Aren’t you going to ask what happened?”</p><p>Jisung shakes his head. “We already heard what happened,” he says.</p><p>Seungmin doesn’t know how to respond to that. “But I– how?”</p><p>Changbin gestures toward the bathroom. “Ask him.”</p><p>Like a fever dream, Minho appears — not as a reflection, not as a figment of Seungmin's subconscious, but as a ghost. Corporeal, with spectral legs and feet. In person, his clothes are still gray. But his hair and eyes, of course, are brown.</p><p>“Like a normal ghost,” Minho says. “Since you asked.”</p><p>Seungmin’s mouth drops. He turns to Jisung and Changbin. “Are you guys really seeing this?”</p><p>“Yes, Seungmin,” Jisung says. “We see him.”</p><p>“I knew your ghost was a cat person,” Changbin says.</p><p>That draws a laugh from them all. It doesn’t hurt to laugh anymore.</p><p>“Minho.” Seungmin can’t believe it. Well, no, he can. He just thinks he can’t. All it takes is imagination and determination. He has both. “I can’t believe I could ever forget you.”</p><p>Minho looks at him with so much care. Sharp, tender. He floats over to Seungmin and places his left hand on top of his right. Seungmin raises his hand and spreads his fingers apart. Minho fills in the gaps, intertwining their hands.</p><p>It makes sense now, or as much sense as death can make. Seungmin remembers Minho, his best friend. The void is an obstacle of his own construction. He journals so he doesn’t forget <em>anymore</em>. The rest of the painting comes together with time.</p><p>“And you won’t forget ever again,” Minho says.</p><p>Seungmin laughs. “Leave it to you to make that sound like a threat.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Yeah <em>what</em>?”</p><p>Minho tilts his head. “I changed my mind. I like this you the most.”</p><p>“Traumatized?” Seungmin jokes.</p><p>“Healing.” Minho smiles. “That’s it.”</p><p>Seungmin smiles back.</p><p>Minho fades. Seungmin exhales. A great weight falls from his body.</p><p>He looks up at Jisung and Changbin, both of whom are crying. Jisung covers his face with his hands, and Changbin clicks his tongue at the former. Seungmin huffs a laugh.</p><p>“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” he says suddenly. He stands up and tests his balance. Nothing is numb. He feels light.</p><p>“You do that,” Changbin says. “If you need help–”</p><p>“Thanks.”</p><p>Seungmin rounds the corner to the bathroom. He turns on the light and looks in the mirror. Staring back at him is himself — a mess, grieving, but himself.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>now that you've finished reading, if there's something you feel i should tweak (tags, warnings, something in the work itself), kindly let me know in the comments. what i think is sufficient may not be enough for readers.</p><p> <a href="https://twitter.com/hyuckfc">twitter!</a><br/><a href="https://curiouscat.qa/ohwonder">cc!</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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